


This Charming Man

by trinityofone



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, First Time, Loss of Virginity, M/M, undead boners how do they work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 21:52:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2084448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trinityofone/pseuds/trinityofone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s no sense of urgency, just the feeling of time stretching out, golden like honey, and Kieren’s body alongside his body. There is nowhere for this to go and so no need for it to go anywhere. Simon stops listening for the turn of the key in the lock. He’s not sure if he’d move if he heard it.</p>
<p>Then all at once Kieren stiffens against him. He says, “Oh!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Charming Man

**Author's Note:**

> fiveyearmission and I referred to this as "the blackcock story" when we were discussing it—just so you have some idea what you're getting into. Please reserve some portion of the credit/blame for her: she's the most thoughtful reader and beta of zombie porn ever. Thanks also to Siria, who did Irish-picking duties, despite her aversion to same.

Simon doesn’t like being naked.

This wasn’t always the case. In his former life, he was mostly indifferent to his body. After university, where he’d studied until his eyeballs ached and his caffeine-fueled hands shook, he went through a brief phase of being fitness-mad: he’d train until his limbs felt like water, pushing himself until the endorphin rush filled his whole being. Then when that had stopped working, he’d turned to sex, and from sex he’d moved on to drugs—the best and last high of his life. 

Undead, he’d briefly given himself over to science, and from there found religion. His body was merely a vessel for the spirit, so it wasn’t just easier but _righteous_ to shroud it from sight. He was not vain or militant enough to armor himself in leather—his thick woolen jumpers were safe and unassuming. This was an ideological battle; he would win it with words.

His body is not nor has ever been his temple.

And yet, Kieren wants to see it.

“Please,” he says. They’ve been kissing for what feels like hours. Kieren’s narrow bed is barely big enough to fit them both, and Simon feels vaguely ridiculous, listening for the sound of Steve or Sue’s key in the door.

(“I feel like a teenager,” Simon had said, the first time they’d snuck a kiss in Kieren’s parents’ house. “Well, I _am_ one,” said Kieren. “Sort of.” And after a moment’s awkward pause—in which Simon had felt things lurch inside his chest that should not be capable of movement—they both decided to table that discussion for another day.)

Simon is a little addicted to the kissing. He rarely initiates it, but once he has Kieren’s blessing, he could keep going for hours more. It doesn’t make sense: kissing never interested him much when he was alive, and now, with the sensation lessened so greatly, it really shouldn’t interest him at all. He feels vaguely guilty sometimes, like he’s playing at being alive: the Prophet never explicitly said anything about that, but he praised their natural chastity, the fact that they had risen above the need for such things.

So why does Simon feel needier than ever? Kieren’s words slip out along with his roaming hands: “I know we can’t…do much, but please—I want to look at you—“ And Simon doesn’t even have a conscious thought, just a moment of certainty, brief but bone-deep, that this, here, will somehow be safe, will be different. He reaches for the hem of his jumper.

His body quakes with the memory of a shiver once it’s off: Kieren is kneeling at his side and Simon is staring up at him. Even with his back to the bed, he feels exposed, his shirt as thin as a cotton sheet, the recollection of a fluttering hospital gown. Better to focus on what’s in front of him, so he swallows past his hesitance to make any sort of demand, to push. “Can I? I want to see you, too…”

Kieren’s eagerness surprises him. Before Simon’s even finished asking, he’s stripping off his hoodie. He pauses only to lean down and kiss Simon; Simon can feel the faint pressure that is the press of his lips, the numbed touch of his hands on Simon’s face. Then he’s rearing back up again, and his shirt follows the hoodie, arcing up through the air and tumbling onto the floor.

Kieren doesn’t give Simon enough time to look. Bare-chested, he spreads himself immediately at Simon’s side. His fingers fly to the buttons below Simon’s collar. “Can I?” he asks now, and Simon, half-astonished, nods. He tries not to think too much about Kieren’s hands moving down his chest, focusing instead on the pale stretch of shoulders under his own hands. Certain subsets of the living—Julian showed Simon a few websites so he’d understand that disgust and hatred were not the only threats they faced—like to romanticize the undead as having skin like marble. Simon knows for a fact that they are much more likely to be ashen, oddly specked and scarred and marked. Kieren is indeed all of these, but Simon’s unfeeling fingertips still can’t get enough of what they’re finding. Kieren is slim as a dagger and Simon loves the feel—or what he imagines to be the feel—of his sharp hips beneath Simon’s big clumsy hands. He can tell that his own shirt has slipped from his shoulders, but he keeps his eyes locked on Kieren’s and it’s okay, it’s all right when they’re like this, chest to chest. The world feels like it’s shrunk to nothing, the tiny raft of this bed, where together, they truly have all the time in the world.

“You have to let go,” Kieren says.

“Huh?” says Simon, fingers tightening in panic for one brief instant, before he forces them to loosen.

“So I can get your shirt off.” He’s tugging at Simon’s cuffs and Simon can’t _actually_ feel the rim of his collar where it’s scraping across his shoulder blades but he _knows it’s there_ and—

“Trousers?” he says. “Maybe trousers instead?”

Kieren looks at him strangely, carefully, like this is another thing he’s filing away for later. But then he smiles and says, “Right,” letting his hands drop down.

Simon isn’t wearing underwear; he doesn’t need it and there’s no point. His cock is cold and quiescent against his thigh. It makes Simon a little sad to think of Kieren touching it, which is ridiculous, but still he catches Kieren’s questing fingers when they’re still working Simon’s trousers down his thighs. He lifts them to his lips and brushes his mouth across the tips, presses a kiss to the palm. “I wish things were different,” he says without thinking.

For a second, Simon’s sure that Kieren’s seen right through him, down deep to the secrets he hides even from himself. But after a moment’s stillness, Kieren smiles softly and says, “It’s all right,” and starts wiggling out of his own trousers and pants. He has slim white thighs underneath his skinny jeans, faintly dusted with copper hair; his cock is as limp as Simon’s, but it’s _beautiful_. Even during his sex-mad phase, Simon was never particularly cock-hungry: _he_ wanted to get off, and his partner was secondary. Kieren, though: Simon finds his thoughts returning again and again to the image of going down on him, sucking his sweet prick until he’s shaking and moaning, straining desperately against the sheets and Simon’s hands on his hips, holding him down. Simon would take him apart; he’d make him feel so good, give him all the pleasure he deserves, and when he came, Simon would be greedy, would suck down every drop—

But he can do none of those things. They can do none of them. Simon feels another stab of sadness, with shame chasing its tail. He can’t help thinking about what the Prophet would say, even though he no longer believes.

He must have let something show on his face, because Kieren is twisting away from him, and when Simon looks up, there’s a panic in his eyes that Simon hates himself for putting there. It makes him look very young.

“It’s all right if you don’t want to,” Kieren says.

The resignation in his voice is as much a scar as the wounds on his wrists. Simon feels terrible: he’s made this too much about himself, and the focus should not, should never, be on him.

“I want too much,” Simon says, reaching to reel Kieren back in. “More than I can give you.”

Kieren’s lip curls the way it does when he thinks Simon is being ridiculous, but Simon knows he’s not: Kieren just doesn’t understand. He looks calmer though, more relaxed, so Simon is happy to have Kieren laugh at him. He tugs Kieren toward him, takes him by the hips and kisses across his pelvis, down his thighs, nuzzling the soft skin of his smooth, slack cock. It doesn’t feel like a mockery of anything when _he_ does it to Kieren: it feels like a fully fitting and righteous act. Kieren’s fingers are tangling in Simon’s hair; Simon can hear him laughing, softly, giddily. He lets Simon pay worship. 

Finally Kieren’s hands still in his hair. “Only if you’re comfortable,” he says. “Only if you want, but—I want to be naked with you. I want to touch you, too. You have to let me—“ He breaks off in a snort. “—Give back.”

Simon’s own huff of laughter, breathed into the flesh of Kieren’s thigh, surprises him a little. “I’d never be non-compliant if they let us complete the scheme this way,” he says. He can feel the vibration of Kieren’s amusement like a shock of electricity through his hands. “Wear the orange vest and everything.”

“Oh my god. Just the vest?” Kieren says, clearly picturing it. Simon starts picturing it, too: wearing so little, out in public, and he feels himself start to tense up. But Kieren’s fingers are trailing soft touches over his scalp and he can almost, almost feel them, and suddenly he wants to be brave enough, bold enough to do that for Kieren; or at least, more realistically, do this here for him now. He lets go long enough to unbutton his cuffs, work his shirtsleeves over his hands. The shirt dips down farther on his back and Simon feels a breeze that probably isn’t there: a cold whisper, like the brush of sterile steel. But he also feels the anchoring pressure of Kieren’s hands, moving up his sides as the fabric falls away.

Simon tilts his head up toward Kieren’s face to find his expression awestruck in a way Simon can’t account for. “Look at you,” Kieren says in a soft tone that’s still curled through with heat. “That’s quite a thing to hide away.”

He can’t be talking about Simon’s back; he hasn’t seen Simon’s back yet. “What?” Simon says stupidly.

And Kieren smiles—the expression breaking across his entire face, like _he’s_ the one who suddenly knows something Simon doesn’t. It’s a weird feeling, to have someone—to have _Kieren_ looking at him like that. 

He is shocked into subservience, then, too surprised not to let Kieren push him back down onto the narrow bed. He simply watches as Kieren lays himself along Simon’s side, one hand splayed possessively on Simon’s chest. They kiss again and again like that, with the tender weight of Kieren’s hand laid over Simon’s unbeating heart. There’s no sense of urgency, just the feeling of time stretching out, golden like honey, and Kieren’s body alongside his body. They kiss and Kieren runs his hands over Simon’s chest, down his flanks and around to his backside, then back up again, slow and lingering. Simon feels bits and pieces of it, the occasional whispers of sensation, with the same sparks periodically going off beneath his fingertips as he makes his own exploration of Kieren’s body: the sweet swell of his ass, the delicate divots of his ribcage, the small grey buds of his nipples and the perfect pale line of his throat. There is nowhere for this to go and so no need for it to go anywhere. For minutes at a time, they cast off the pageantry of drawing breath; the room is churchlike in its silence. Simon stops listening for the turn of the key in the lock. He’s not sure if he’d move if he heard it.

Then all at once Kieren stiffens against him. He says, “Oh!”

Simon opens his eyes to find himself staring into Kieren’s wide ones. Together, they look down. Kieren draws his hips back cautiously: there, nestled at the vee of his legs, his pale, limp cock has started to stir. Even more alarming, the tip has turned dark: not a healthy red flush—but then, Simon remembers, their blood is not a healthy living red, is it? It is thick and dark and slow-moving, and apparently, given enough time and inspiration, it can…

“Well, that’s, um,” Kieren says, shakily. “Normally I guess I’d go straight to the clinic for that—“

Simon’s laugh is more like a wheeze. He can’t stop staring, eyes flickering between the shell-shocked look on Kieren’s face and the still-swelling source of said shock.

“Did you know we could—?”

Simon shakes his head. He is unmoored but it’s an oddly exhilarating feeling. Swallowing, he says, “Can I—?”

Kieren’s shoulders give a hopeless little shrug. Like Simon, he looks torn between a fit of giggles and a panic attack. “Go for it,” he says, with only a mild hint of hysteria. 

Simon reaches down and runs his thumb along the hardening line of Kieren’s prick. Despite how it looks, it feels just like any aroused cock—or would, Simon thinks, taking into account his own limited sensations. He curls his hand around it, staring at the blackened head as it bobs. Kieren sucks in a stuttering breath.

“Can you feel that?” Simon asks, amazed.

“No,” says Kieren, still breathless, “but—sort of, I— Oh god, I can’t explain.”

“Try,” Simon pleads. He tries increasing the pressure, half-convinced he can expand Kieren’s perceptions by sheer force of will. He wants him to have this.

“It’s like—“ Kieren’s let his head fall back, his neck slack and his hair a shining copper ring against the pillow. “Like something that was still in me is stirring again. Like, like, a tree in spring…”

Simon bows his head. Like everything else about Kieren, this is so strange and beautiful. He laps his tongue around the blackened head of Kieren’s cock, sucking the tip gently as he pumps. Kieren lets out a little cry and throws his arm up over his face. “Oh, god, Simon—“

“All right?” Simon pulls off long enough to ask.

He gets a weak nod. Then another hysterical huff of laughter. “This is just not—this is just _really_ not what I imagined my first time would be like.”

“Your—” says Simon.

He is frozen. Kieren, meanwhile, is scrambling, propping himself up. “No, no—“ he says. “It’s all right, don’t freak—“

“You’re eighteen,” Simon says—allows himself to say for the first time. To acknowledge it. “Jesus. You’re _eighteen_.”

“Well,” says Kieren. “Twenty-three.”

“If you’re twenty-three, then I’m thirty-four,” Simon reports dully.

“And remarkably well-preserved!” Kieren clearly does not get the reaction he desired. “Simon,” he tries instead. “This means nothing to us. None of this has anything to do with who _we_ are.” He gestures between them, then reaches out and cups a hand around the back of Simon’s neck. “Ages are for the living, yeah?”

Simon narrows his eyes at him. “Are you seriously trying this on me.”

“Annoying, isn’t it?” Kieren says. He draws Simon forward into a kiss instead.

“It’s more than just the age gap, though,” Simon says when they pull apart. “There are still things I haven’t—“

He lets his head drop. Then slowly, unable to help the ghost of a tremble in his limbs, he lowers his body down at Kieren’s side—back up.

He’s been careful, so careful all this time, to angle it away, to keep Kieren’s hands elsewhere and his eyeline obscured. Still, Kieren does not react in shock or horror, and Simon can’t tell if it means that he knew, or if he really _is_ just that perfect and kind. He is so gentle: Simon can feel the soft pressure of his hands on Simon’s shoulder blades. He says Simon’s name and strokes him, unhurriedly, unselfishly—despite the wonder still nestled between his legs. Simon turns his head and puffs unnecessary breaths into the curve of Kieren’s neck. He shudders a little when Kieren says, “You don’t have to hide from me.”

“I just want it to be different this time,” Simon whispers. “I need it to be different.”

Kieren nods: he gets that, really and truly; Simon knows he does. “I don’t believe that the past is meaningless,” Kieren says after a moment. “It happened and it matters—it’s part of who we are. But that doesn’t mean we can’t start over.”

_I want to start over with you_ , Simon thinks, and since apparently, now, in his new life, he just _says_ these things: “I want to start over with you.” He laughs a little at himself once the words are out, his old self who kept everything back.

Kieren laughs too, and holds him by the edges of his spine and kisses him—and kisses him and kisses him, until Simon _does_ feel like a teenager again, a blushing, squirming virgin, figuring everything out for the first time.

“Oh my god, I’m still hard,” Kieren says after a minute. “I guess since it’s slower to, you know, it makes sense that—“

“We can analyze it later,” Simon says, slipping his hand around it again. “I’ve a better idea what you can do with it.”

He gives Kieren one last stroke, one last kiss, before letting go and scooting over, dropping himself down onto his hands and knees.

He can tell Kieren is staring at the line of his back, but Kieren’s stare is a balm, it is so, so good, and the broken tone of his voice is even better. “Simon—“

“It’s my first time this time around too,” he says, allowing himself a glance over his shoulder. “But I don’t think you need to worry about being gentle.”

“Oh my god,” Kieren says, “Simon…”

“Please,” Simon says, and it feels so good to beg, “please Kieren, give me this—“

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kieren says. He drops a kiss onto Simon’s shoulder, then springs off the bed. “Okay, just give me a minute, _don’t move!_ ”

Simon is happy, is _ecstatic_ to comply. He can’t imagine ever feeling this excited before, waiting for Kieren to come back. His body feels strange and sparky and alight: it’s not quite actual sensation, and yet his anticipation feels physical. He looks down between his braced arms and sees that he’s stirring against his thigh, his cockhead blushing black. Simon lets out a low moan, his shoulders and knees trembling.

Kieren slams back through the door, which he swiftly if awkwardly braces shut with a chair. “Found some Vaseline,” he says, coming back over to the bed with the jar.

Simon shakes his head. “Don’t need it.”

“Uh, Mister Thirty-Four-Year-Old Sexpert: I think we do.” Simon can’t even bristle because Kieren’s gaze is soft on his body, taking him in. “Oh god, you’re hard.”

“Want you,” Simon pants.

“Yeah?” Kieren says, and the question surprises Simon—seems to surprise both of them by coming out so hesitant, so genuine. “You want my freaky zombie cock?”

It nearly causes Simon to topple over, but he grabs for Kieren’s hand anyway. “I want your beautiful undead prick,” Simon says firmly, giving Kieren’s fingers a rough squeeze. “Now, Kieren.”

“Oh god,” Kieren says, “there’s a new slogan for you.” But he squeezes back. He squeezes back: and then he lets go and leans forward, draping his body along Simon’s back and kissing him there—soft kisses he shouldn’t even be able to feel along the length of Simon’s spine. He kisses the ragged edge of Simon’s skin, holding him gently by the hips. When he reaches the top of his ass, Kieren pauses— _eighteen, virgin_ —and then he’s kissing there, nosing him open, not yet quite brave enough to lick. Simon tries to hold himself still; he can hear Kieren messing around with the Vaseline. Then his fingers: Simon can tell they are slick now; they glide against him, and hey, it’s nice not to have to worry about the lube being too cold. Simon adjusts himself, encourages himself to be open. Kieren’s hand slips off his hip, down around to Simon’s slowly swelling cock, and that is very encouraging indeed.

“Do I just…” Kieren says.

“Whatever you want,” says Simon, honestly. But Kieren’s obviously looking for direction. “Tease around the edge and then work a finger inside,” he instructs. “See how it feels.”

Simon’s anxious to know himself. It’s frustrating, how he can only sense the ghosts of Kieren’s touches. But then Kieren does slip a finger inside and it’s surprisingly good: the beginnings of that feeling of fullness are there. “Another,” he gasps out, before he can help himself.

He’s not as tight as he used to be. Simon doesn’t want to think too much about that: it’ll send him back to imagining Kieren sweaty and warm above him, with his cock smearing streaks across the rim of his ass. Things he shouldn’t want and can’t have. He needs to focus on this, and how this is good too: he can hear Kieren panting and feel the weight of his hands, the movement of his fingers. He keeps saying Simon’s name, over and over, like a mantra, a prayer, and that’s backwards but it drives Simon wild. “Come on, come on, give it to me,” he says, and he hears Kieren murmur, “Okay” before a moment of aching emptiness.

But then it’s over, and instead there’s the oddly numbed press of Kieren pushing inside. That’s weirdly good, too, though—instead of overwhelming, he has to strain for the pleasure of it, the feeling coming to him in bits and pieces and by other means besides touch: the broken sound of Kieren’s voice, the protective weight of him atop Simon’s back, the sudden fullness. Kieren’s still lost in a litany of his name: “Oh, Simon, Simon,” he says, “I can almost—I don’t think I’m going to be able to come, but—“

“That’s all right, just do whatever you want. Take as long as you need.” Simon imagines Kieren staying inside him for—for—just _staying_ , and he feels his own cock prod heavy but dry against his stomach as Kieren thrusts forward. “Is this good?” he asks, gripping Simon’s hips.

“Yes,” Simon breathes. It _is_ good: strange and slow and eternal. He drops his head down to the mattress, stops trying so hard to hold himself up, and just lets Kieren keep working him open. He feels lost in it, and the only thing that would be better, he thinks, would be if he could have Kieren’s mouth on him again.

Kieren must agree, because after a little while longer he asks, “Do you mind if I…?” before pulling out and coaxing Simon to roll over. Simon jolts, briefly, at the feel of his spine against the mattress, but Kieren is still there between his thighs, his palms dragging along Simon’s flanks, and the smooth slide back together is blissful. Simon locks his legs around Kieren’s waist and drags their mouths back together. They kiss, Kieren fucking into him fast, then slower and slower, till their movements are as natural and easy as the tide, flowing in and out, in and out.

Kieren’s a comforting weight on his chest; they’re hardly moving now except the occasional twitch of one or both sets of hips. Simon feels sleepy and peaceful—but also like, if he asked, he could get Kieren to start up again, resume taking him roughly without the two of them ever breaking apart. 

Kieren clearly reads the thought on his face: “Well, we’ve certainly found one way to fill the time.”

Simon nods, though he knows he can’t quite manage the appropriate level of solemnity to really sell it. “It’s very tantric.”

Kieren rolls his eyes at him, which in the context of that moment feels as affectionate as a caress. Then, “Thank you,” Kieren says, and Simon stares at him, puzzled. 

“It was a memorable first time,” says Kieren. He reaches up to touch Simon’s face and his hand is trembling, slightly. His sudden vulnerability makes something stutter in Simon’s chest, like a phantom spasm of his heart. Gently, Simon catches Kieren’s fingertips, kisses them, then eases their bodies apart. As much as he’d like to, he can’t forget about the rest of the world.

There’s shockingly little to clean up, just a few smears of Vaseline. There are things Simon misses about a really messy fuck—reveling in the dirty decadence of it all—but there’s a purity to this. He finds his trousers and is stepping into them when he realizes Kieren is watching him, head propped up on his elbow. Simon finds himself taking the trousers up a little more slowly than he otherwise might.

“I’m going to draw you later,” Kieren says.

“You’ve drawn me.” Simon attempts to shake the wrinkles out of his shirt.

“From memory. Not from—“ His lip quirks. “—Life.”

“All right,” Simon says, although he can feel himself balking at Kieren’s supposed interest.

Kieren frowns. “You wouldn’t deprive me of such a fine subject?” he says, young and awkward and flirtatious—reaching a pale hand out for Simon.

Simon’s only got his shirt half-on, but he leaves it open and unbuttoned, dropping to one knee on the bed. “This is _me_ we’re talking about here?” he says, folding himself back down, fumbling for Kieren’s fingers.

“Yes, _you_ ,” Kieren says, and his breath feels shockingly warm as he tugs Simon close, whispers in his ear. “ _You_ , Simon. You’re beautiful.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kieren is a year younger than Luke Newberry, so I made Simon a year younger than Emmett Scanlan. These are the important things I think about!


End file.
